PHILADELPHIA — Two measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania last week were omitted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest measles outbreak update, continuing an increasingly political clash over the nature of the deaths announced by the state last week.

The two deaths reported by Pennsylvania — the first in the country this year — were not included because ”available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles,” the agency says in an update posted to the CDC’s website Sunday.

President Donald Trump’s head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has disputed what Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and state health officials have disclosed about the deaths.

Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, wrote on X that the deaths may have been “fabricated” by the Shapiro administration, which has confirmed the deaths announced last Tuesday were “measles-associated.”

Pennsylvania’s Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Shapiro told reporters on Friday that “getting into a back-and-forth with people online who are spewing irresponsible conspiracy theories” does not “serve the public interest.”

The CDC publishes weekly updates tallying measles cases and deaths by state, tracking the spread of a highly contagious disease that was once considered eradicated in the United States due to widespread vaccination.

As of Thursday, 2,887 confirmed measles cases were reported by 47 states, with another 16 cases reported among international visitors, according to the CDC’s latest update.

As of Friday, Pennsylvania had reported 460 measles cases in 2026, with 83 hospitalizations, amid the state’s largest outbreak in three decades. About a third were reported among children under 18.

Pennsylvania health officials have said they define “measles-associated deaths” as deaths of people where evidence of measles is present, even when the highly contagious disease may not be assessed by the coroner as the immediate cause of death.

The state has not provided any additional information on the deaths beyond confirming both people were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, and one patient was a newborn.

Public health experts have said that, by not disclosing information like the victims’ ages, reasons for being unvaccinated, and causes of death, state officials created an information vacuum in which conspiracy theories could spread.

Officials said that state law prevents them from revealing more details about the deaths.

“There’s been a complete politicization of this event,” said Paul Offit, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia physician who heads the hospital’s Vaccine Education Center.

A longtime Kennedy critic, Offit said the state should have released more information on the deaths to prevent a “void” for conspiracy theorists to fill.

He’s also concerned that debate over the deaths will obscure efforts to address the growing outbreak centered in Lancaster County, which has some of the lowest kindergarten vaccination rates in the state.

“It’s August. This is only going to get worse. What can we do to prevent more children suffering and being hospitalized?” he said. “That’s really the question, and that’s not the question we’re asking.”

Lancaster County’s coroner has said he handled one of the deaths, a newborn who died shortly after birth.

The coroner, Stephen Diamantoni, has said the child had a measles infection acquired before birth and died from a ruptured spleen. Diamantoni, a Republican elected official, said he was still investigating the cause of the ruptured spleen, citing trauma, and that he does not believe measles was the cause of death.

Diamantoni told The Inquirer last week that he had spoken with the CDC about his conclusions on the child’s death. He did not respond to an additional request for comment on the child’s death certificate on Monday.

Measles was listed on the baby’s death certificate, he told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in a section of the certificate that reports other “conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause.” Measles was included on the death certificate “to offer a broader view of the general health of the child,” he told the Pittsburgh paper.

The CDC’s latest measles update said that the agency is reviewing “additional information regarding the circumstances and causes of death.”

State and CDC measles case counts may differ because of their reporting schedules. The CDC’s webpage reflects “only confirmed measles cases” reported to the agency by noon Thursdays.

The federal agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Kennedy has said the state is not providing requested information with the CDC. State officials have responded they are in regular contact with the agency and met with CDC staff last week to discuss the cases.

An Amish family in Lancaster County detailed in an article published Sunday in The Atlantic how their son had died shortly after birth earlier this month, after his mother was infected with measles.

The child had died on the same day as the newborn whose death was investigated by Diamantoni, who would not confirm the baby’s identity to The Atlantic.

The family has 13 surviving children, all of whom recently contracted measles. Only the father, identified by a pseudonym in The Atlantic, had been vaccinated against measles.Both parents said they did not have “strong feelings against vaccination.”

They had not known that their child’s death was at the center of a national controversy and did not know who Shapiro or Kennedy were, they said.

They also hadn’t spoken to the coroner about the cause of their child’s death, but assumed that his mother’s illness had contributed, and were surprised it was being discussed in public.

Still freshly grieving the loss of their child, they said his death was “part of God’s plan,” the magazine reported.

The father confirmed to an Inquirer reporter that he had spoken to the Atlantic but declined to comment further.

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